February 7, 2019
By Jeffrey Gu
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We’re DONE.
I was supposed to write another column here, but semester one is over now and I’m too
lazy to care, so this is all you’ll get for this edition. Maybe I’ll have enough motivation to write
more than two sentences next time. Bye!
…
Jk lol
But HEY! Guess what? By the time this column is published, you will officially be a
second semester senior!
That’s it. Goodbye. We’re DONE.
We’ve been agonizing over applications for months now. We’ve been working through our own college searches, exploring what defines us and trying to package and condense ourselves into a handful of activities and a few hundred words. We’ve researched colleges, drafted essays, revised openings, closings and everything in between, tailored our application to each school and maybe even copy-pasted a few essays from one college to another (shhhhhhh).
Now, the end has finally, finally arrived. We’re done with the Common App, done with info sessions and college tours and CollegeBoard (but hopefully not CollegeBored!) We’ve braved all these obstacles, and now we’re out of that five month panic attack known as senior fall.
Whether you finished back in November, or you worked right up until 11:59 on Dec. 31, take a moment to pause. Breathe. Reflect on all that you’ve done and all the ground you’ve covered since your very first day of high school (oof frosh flashbacks). And if you’re still feeling the aftereffects of that last-minute grind through quarter two and you’re still carrying last-minute regrets over how you handled that essay or the grade you got on that last math test– let it go. Whatever you wrote and whatever you pulled together in that final stretch, now that everything is submitted, it’s out of your hands.
It can definitely be scary, knowing that the merits of your four years of high school–
essays, recommendations, transcripts, test scores, and all – are being evaluated by someone you’ve never met. But ultimately, we can’t control how admissions officers will
decide. Nothing that happens now can change what decision pops up in an applicant status
portal a few weeks from now. So why stress more over it? All we have to do is live out our best
high school lives and hope for as many snow days as possible, since we’re not the ones who’ll be making them up!
This bears repeating: YOU ARE A SECOND SEMESTER SENIOR. It’s a bad idea to throw all your studies completely out the window, but you no longer have to worry so much about how you do on that next essay, or whether you forgot to do the Spanish homework. If it’s a choice between a night of studying and a night to sleep, pick sleep. There’s no reason not to anymore. We only have a few short months left before we all go off on our own paths. Spend time with your friends. Do that thing you’ve been meaning to do but have been too busy to get around to. Enjoy the final stages of this chapter of your life– you deserve it.
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